Tuesday, 31 January 2017

Trains … ferroequinology the study of those rolling stock
wagons or in old parlance ‘iron horses’ … raised its head in two ways … the
incredible new silk route across China, Russia, Europe which now has a terminus
in east London, at the Barking depot, Essex.

Stephenson's Rocket

The Trans-Siberian railway forms a key component of the Silk
Road Economic Belt with its incredible coverage:

70% of the world’s population

75% of its energy resources

70% of the Gross Domestic Product in the world

Then there are these inland harbours … but methinks this post
will be about the ferroequinology aspect and one inland port that of Duisburg,
Germany.

An example of an earlier 'old' silk route

I was staggered to read that a Chinese cargo train which had
set out from Yiwu, famous as a commodities centre, south-west of Shanghai,
arrived in London 16 - 18 days later, in about half the usual ship consignment
time, and at half the estimated airfreight cost.

The average container ship can hold up to 19,224 twenty-foot
containers on a large cargo vessel … but this train with 200 containers cannot
match up, yet saves time, tends not to have delays, and costs less. 34 of
the wagons, with 68 containers, were destined for London.

Spanish Tapas - ham, chorizo, wine, cheeses,
olive oil dip ...

The wagons from different countries will not go back empty … from Madrid will go
hams, chorizo, olive oil, cheeses, wine and from Germany and Belgium beer … Poland has
speciality foods too …

Container Ship sparkling in the sun in a
shipping lane in the English Channel

Ships will still be used for larger and heavier goods – so the
high seas will still be traversed. ‘Our’
train brought in socks, garments, bags and suitcases, or similar items – return
products will be of local origin …

There seem to be various routes being tested … this train
travelled 7,500 miles, through seven countries, had to unload and re-load where
the varying rail gauges on Russian lines didn’t match.

Different rail gauges used across the world:
the blue is the standard gauge

The UK’s containers were unloaded in Duisburg, before being
transferred for the last leg under the Channel and into Barking, East
London. Duisburg has reinvented itself
as an inland container port … the world’s largest inland harbour … see link to Railway Gazette

This is an American train - but they are
experimenting with trains 3.5 miles long?!

… and provides the specially approved cargo container wagons, for the last part of the rail trip via the Channel Tunnel … so we can get
our consignment of household products into the UK.

A silk, or sock, route reinvented … I certainly hadn’t thought
we would be importing goods via a rail network – we are an island after all –
or so I believed! …

Extraordinary world we live in … there are 39 routes linking
16 Chinese cities to 12 European ones, including Hamburg and Madrid, as well as
London.

J M W Turner's 1844 painting:
"Rain, Steam and Speed"

Ferroequinology is a winner … just the thought of this journey
bemuses me … what would JMW Turner, the artist with his “Rain, Steam and Speed
– the Great Western Railway”(1844), have thought of it … and it was only 8
years ago that container ships were being moth-balled in deep water ports due
to the global economic crisis …

Here’s to the new silk route … and these silk routes will be
spun and spun … which could lead to a number of global shortages … if most of
our commodities are off to China … as we recently had with chocolate … it is an
interesting world at the moment.

... reminded me about Paprika … bringing
back those memories of Hungarian goulashes often served or created in the 1960s
…

… but the descriptive passages Fermor uses, as he traverses
and stays in the Great Plain of Hungary, brought the rich haze of summer to
mind:

Hungarian Peppers air drying

“The summer
solstice was past, peonies and lilac had both vanished, cuckoos had changed
their tune and were making ready to fly.
Roast corn-cobs came and trout from the mountains; cherries, then
strawberries, apricots and peaches, and, finally, wonderful melons and
raspberries.

The
scarlet blaze of paprika …”

Szeged is just below the "Y" of Hungary;
Kalocsa (not shown) is about where the
"A" of Hungary appears.

Szeged and Kalocsa are two of the main towns in the southern
part of the Great Plain ... while the Paprika Museum in Kalocsa records
Capsicum’s history …

… I have to say I thought Paprika originally came from Hungary
… but no – originating in south - middle America, it is thought the Spanish Conquistadores brought the plant over…
capsicum acclimatised very quickly and was first used as a decorative plant.

The Carpathian Mountains surround
the Great Plain of Slovakia, Hungary, Romania
and Ukraine: the Danube and its main
tributaries run through it ...

Similarly to my post on Marzipan – the trading routes played
their part in its dispersal across Europe, along the Mediterranean, through Africa,
Persia and north into the Great Plains of Hungary via the Danube River with the
Turkish expansionists … which led us to those Great Plains which Fermor
describes so evocatively.

Capsicum a member of the Nightshade family … has many
varieties in hues of gold, vivid greens, amber, vermillion or chili red …
the early herbalists realised the medicinal values … a fine natural body
purifier and internal disinfectant … while a variety of other remedies are
being researched.

Peppers are hugely nutritious … they have more Vitamin C than
an orange, and have relatively high amounts of Vitamins B6 and A. These contain 94% water, but once dried they
have different nutritional values.

Dried Paprika

Pungency varies – the Mexican - American types tend to be spicier: the
chili cayenne types - while the Hungarian/Spanish Paprika is made from the
milder, pointed-shape paprika fruit.

Hungarian sausages and hams

Hungarian and Spanish peppers are dried and ground, or used as
vegetables or in salads … added to stews, sauces and now ubiquitously added to
all manner of produce – particularly sausages (Spanish Chorizo … pork, sweet
paprika and garlic, then cured).

Hungarian goulash – where paprika is an essential ingredient –
uses cubed beef, onions, tomatoes and small potatoes … brown meat and onion,
add seasoning of paprika and garlic, salt, tomatoes … add in small potatoes and
gently simmer … making a meal for friends and family, or a smaller pot … serve with sour cream ...

Remember when using paprika that it has a high sugar content
and burns easily … so do not cook over a
high heat for too long, and make sure there’s some liquid in your dish.

Bell Peppers with almonds, add in
some garlic, seasoning and whizz
with oil ... Romesco sauce

There are so many varieties of the capsicum plant that are
necessary for particular sauces … eg Romesco Sauce - while for now I’ll leave
the cayenne/chili cultivars for another post, together with the fabled Scoville
scale.

The black pepper, some of us use so liberally, is not related
to the capsicum … pepper nigrum is native to south India … and has a different botanical
relationship to that of capsicum or to Sichuan pepper. The generic name “pepper” probably comes from
the Greek word kapto ‘to gulp’ … that
makes sense?

This wonderfully useful ancestral spice has been used for
generations … so encourage your family and friends to include some in their
diet … though be aware, that some people may be allergic to them … but certainly
for me I can see the benefits …

… and will continue to enjoy my peppers as a vegetable or in
my salads … so many ways to use them …

Thursday, 19 January 2017

The Law of Unintended Consequences runs to blog posts … I’d
added in my Marmite v Bovril post a painting by Manet “A Bar at the Folies-Bergère” which features a bottle of Bass Beer
with the Red Triangle logo in ‘full view’ …

… the Bass company was a pioneer in international brand
marketing, which thanks to Bazza, from the blog “To Discover Ice”, we found out
about via his comment.

Listening to University Challenge recently, the question arose
‘what was the first Trade Mark to be registered in the UK’ … well I knew that
answer!

"A bar at the Folies-Bergere" -
by Edouard Manet (1882)

The Trade Mark Registration Act of 1875, came into force on 1
January 1876 with Bass being the first to register two of their images as trade
marks: the Bass Red Triangle for their pale ale and the Bass Red Diamond for
their strong ale.

In UK law, the term as defined under the Trade Marks Act 1994
is “trade mark”, not “trademark” as in the laws of other countries, including
the US.

A trade mark can be a name, word, phrase, logo, symbol,
design, image, sound, shape, signature or any combination of these elements:
it’s a complicated legal guarantee that needs to be correctly registered with,
in our case, the UK Intellectual Property Office.

In 1862 the Merchandise Marks Act made it a criminal offence
to imitate another’s trade mark “with intent to defraud or to enable another to
defraud”.

An early advertisement for
Bass' No.1 Barley Wine

In 1875 the Trade Marks Registration Act was passed which
allowed formal registration of trade marks at the UK Patent Office for the
first time. Registration was considered
to comprise prima facie evidence of ownership of a trade mark, with the Bass images
as trade marks being the first registered on New Year’s Day 1876.

We now have the Trade Marks Act 1994, which implements the
European Trade Marks Directive into national law. This adds another complicated law into our
legal way of life … and will perhaps need to be unravelled in the course of
Brexit.

At this point I close the conversation – as my main object has
been achieved: highlighting the start of obvious brand advertising in paintings
in this country – to which Edouard Manet and Picasso (in his Cubist period
around 1914) subscribed; while in an episode of James Joyce’s Ulysses, Bloom,
the fictional protagonist, observes the Bass logo.

A road sign in the City of London

I would think in the scheme of life – brand advertising has
been around for millennia … with perhaps the images associated with particular
trades, which appeared on carts, wagons, building walls, doorways, via town
criers etc as the most obvious to apply …

The Worshipful Company of
Bakers' Crest

… while in trade mark treatises it is thought that blacksmiths
who made swords in the Roman Empire are thought of as being the first users of
trade marks. Henry III in 1266, required
by law, that all bakers use a distinctive mark for the bread they sold …

Now brand names are appearing everywhere … and we cannot get
away from them … that red triangle and red diamond being the first two … when
formalisation of trade marks became regulated in the 1800s …

I will be posting this on Thursday … as some of us will be
completely switching off on Friday, or become totally embroiled in what the
land beyond the pond is serving up … I shall, I hope, be lost in some creative
space – yes: I have a busy day!

Friday, 13 January 2017

Eight years down and now into the 9th … Blogversary,
my Saint’s Day and Birthday collide forever onwards … I am still staggered (and
honoured) at how much you appreciate the blog and its contents … so this post
is for nostalgia sake …

… and gives a little more detail on my past and about how I got
to this ninth year of writing – 825 posts written, but 26 (left-overs from the
2016 non participation) in the A-Z to come … let alone the lingering cobweb of
posts behind the scenes.

I’m also doing a Memoir, or Epistolary type course under the
auspices of the University of the Third Age … really just how we want to record
our lives – mine is pretty varied, as with no children, I can go back and/or
sideways – and the families are interesting … so that’s my way.

Looks like a library to me - but is actually a bookshop:Daunt Books - various shops in London

There is another bloghop somewhere! asking why and how we got
blogging etc … at the end I post a link to Karen Lange’s blog – she interviews
bloggers … I appear once! But there are
many others with plenty of advice on blogging and its benefits.

I’ve been wondering where my learning comes from … most is
from blogging – as I was not ‘learnéd’ at school … but I did enjoy geography
and sport …

Our pink empire is now rusty brown!

… thus I learnt about those pink countries in the world (aka
British Empire) … but they’ve become more ghostly as time goes by … Brexiting
away as we speak …

John Lennon's stamp album

… from stamp collecting which I did for a few years in my
teens, when I was at home … so I enjoy seeing Bob Scotney’s stamps over at his
blog …and thus learn more.

Colour coded continents

Geography gave the outline of the continents, and via the
stamp collecting and, of course, geography I could put countries into the
continents, South America being the easy one.

The one thing I do have is a fair amount of is common sense
and practicality … so I guess would learn the obvious … but those extras –
reading, maths, literature, grammar or languages, Latin and French, art,
physics and chemistry, biology, even needlework and cooking – there was not
much sticking into the brain box when I was a kid. Something stuck obviously!

Interesting - this is from the Council for the Protectionof Rural England website - and was my first job!

Practical aspects – meant I found it easy to drive and
navigate my way round the English lanes, I was lucky I’ve done a little
travelling – but not a lot … I enjoyed different foods and cooking … so again
another learning curve …

… then work – I had some interesting jobs, not career ones …
but I worked for the Farnborough Air Show … taking on board how to address VIPs
(as that was my section) …

Munich posters ... I still have a set

I was lucky to work for the British Olympic team and the 1972 Munich Olympics – again an opportunity
not to be missed and a 3 day trip to the Games … then spent some years working for East European organisations ... another learning curve ...

Then I toddled off to southern Africa … so started to pick up
aspects of that part of the world … and over time we glean new things that add
in to the tapestry of one’s learning.

I had enjoyed learning to cook and had the fortune of growing
up with parents who would do what they could to help educate and entertain us …
always with gardens at our disposal …

Back here and into blogging – why because I needed to learn
what was going on in the internet world and thus needed to be involved – then
my mother became bedridden and needed me to be available, and my father’s
brother-in-law grew frailer after his wife died …

… so, though, I didn’t need to nurse them I took on the caring
role for both … and needed to have intelligent things to chat about … I quickly
took on board … my mother’s ‘well go home
and google it’!!! Thus appearing the
next time with interesting articles … and something to intellectually challenge
her and for us to chat about …

Mediterranean foods - my mother and uncle would haveloved these sorts of meals

… when I visited my uncle – all he wanted to do was to see
what I’d written on my blog … he opened the envelope and got stuck in – I made
coffee/tea or lunch … and waited til he was free! A huge compliment …

But I couldn’t and wouldn’t have started blogging if the main
source of information wasn’t in English … we are lucky if we are English
speakers … being a poor linguist (lazy too) … I admire everyone who learns to
speak another language, especially English …

Spanokopita - spinach and cheese layerin filo pastry ...

The University of the Third Age, other organisations, museum
and historic places that interest me … have added to the layers of knowledge
that I’ve acquired over the years … my uncle and mother would have loved these
…

It’s interesting how the layers stack up quietly … and each episode
of life adds to its glory … I never thought I’d be that interested in politics,
but I do find the Brexit scenario very interesting – complicated, historically
interwoven …

Art work in St Hilary's Church, St Hilary in Cornwallit is by Joan Manning Sanders (early 20th C) - she was aten year old child. (postcard copy)"Flight into Egypt" from a series of Nativity scenes.

I wonder where we’re going … the thing that frustrates me as
another year passes – yes Friday 13th … it was also the day of the
week I became 13 … and I’ve lived in a number of # 13s …

… is that I will still be around for a while – but I doubt
I’ll see it out … or where we get to … I hope those heavenly clouds up there
will allow me to glimpse out and see how life pans out …

Here’s to a glorious life ahead for us all … and let 2017 be
kind and generous to one and all …

I have been evaluating how best to tell my stories … yes the
A-Z, and the different sections (herbs and spices), bran tub eclectics, blog
sandwich updates … and then my own history Herstory … the Her of She Who wouldbe Mary Wollstonecraft … and so it goes on –

-but I’d better stop as you’ll all be thinking –
Golly Gosh does the woman ever stop. My
mother loved my ‘Golly Gosh’
exclamations … one day I missed out Golly … she didn’t miss it – where is he,
she asked! He was by the seaside ... I replied!

to me and my blog ...

So forgive the excess … it does happen only once a year and
that ageing comes around far too quickly … 2017 hasn’t started too well, nor did
half of 2016 .. but by 2018 – life will be renewed!

Friday, 6 January 2017

We are still in the season of joyfulness … are we not?! … and
I love marzipan – how it filtered into my mind for a blog post I have no idea … Christmas provided me with none!

Battenburg Cake ... sandwiched with apricot jam, surrounded by a layer of marzipan

… now its German name is the popular version … our English Marchpane “March Bread” is no longer in
use … though Shakespeare used it in Romeo and Juliet …

… those of us who love marzipan … enjoy one of the oldest
sweet pleasures to have spread around the Mediterranean … almonds, honey or
sugar, bound with an egg, or just a whisked white, flavoured with a favourite
spice …

… sometimes vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg or the zest of orange or
lemon, or waters of orange and particularly rose … then do not leave out
chocolate – marzipan is especially happy covered with decadent chocolate.

Where did it originate … certainly the Persian and
Mediterranean districts, even possibly from as far afield as China … then in
the last 1200 years or so it spread overland through Turkey and Eastern Europe
… via the Crusades, before using the Hanseatic League merchant guilds in their
market towns to establish northern roots … the Guilds dominated Baltic maritime
trade from circa 1400 – 1800 AD.

The Marzipan museums of Lübeck, northern Germany and
Tallinn, Estonia remind us of this link through their proud tradition of
marzipan manufacture ...

Maiasmokk Cafe, Tallinn

… the market square in Lübeck boasts the always-crowded
Café Niederegger –the marzipan known as “harem
confectionery”, while attached to the café and shop is the museum …

Tallinn marzipan started in the Middle Ages … and here it is
mentioned as a medicine in the price lists of the Tallinn Town Hall Pharmacy …
the Maiasmokk Café remembers the tradition of supplying marzipan figurines to
the Russian Imperial family, as well as being a café …

Al-Andalus and Christian Kingdomsc 1000 AD(Toledo is under the "H")

Or via Moorish Spain and the Iberian Peninsula … where the
Arabs expanded the almond and orange orchards, introduced sugar cane
cultivation (which is almost non-existent now – there is sugar beet) … and
began producing this exquisite paste.
After Arab power waned … the secrets of marzipan-making were secured by
the nuns in Catholic convents.

Orange and Almond orchards

To my surprise there are many European centres of marzipan
manufacture … with several having supporting marzipan museums … in Europe –
each has its own style and flavourings used … baked or unbaked and modelled
into a variety of shapes.

Marzipan is ideal for many uses … chocolates filled with the
sweet paste, wrapped around nuts, candied fruits, poached in fresh fruits as a
dessert …

Is this the new 21st C cappuccino?

There are marzipans made from pistachios, or less expensive
ones where almonds are replaced by apricot or peach kernels … but the best is
the best … so buy from a controlled source … where you can be sure of your
purchase.

My Bran Tub could easily be full to the brim with marzipan chocolate
nuts, truffles, batons … but I think my brain would be marzipanified for the
year ahead … and that would not be a good idea – an idea for a story though …
Death by Marzipan?

Happy New Year … with good health ... perhaps fewer chocolates would be a good idea?

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About Me

A lover of life – who after London, spent time in South Africa; an administrator, sports lover, who enjoys cooking and entertaining ... who through her mother’s illness found a new passion – writing, in particular blogging; which provides an opportunity for future exploration, by the daughter, who has (in her 3rd age years) found a love of historical education. Curiosity didn’t kill this cat – interaction is the key!